NUFORC Sighting 34550

Occurred: 1982-07-18 15:30 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2004-01-18 16:22 Pacific
Duration: 15 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Mountian View, CA, USA

Shape: Cylinder
Characteristics: Aircraft nearby

Matelic cylindrical object sighted from Navy P3 Orion from above, houvering near Lookeed instalation.

I was in the Navy reserve from 78 through 85. I was an AE3-Aviation Electrican's mate third class and was attached to a P3 squadren at NAS Moffett Field in Mountain View CA. I was later, after graduation, selected to attend Aviation Offer's Candate School, Pensacola FL. I was living in Pasadena at the time, and was utilizing our P3 anti submarine aircraft as an airlift to my duty station once a month from southern CA.

At the time I was a student pilot, with about 70 hours on the books and countless hundreds of hours flying "dead head" on board Navy aircraft and general aviation aircraft. I have been around aircraft all of my life. My father was an accomplished pilot, and at times we owned two aircraft when I was a youngster.

The sighting occured shortly after takeoff from NAS Moffett Field enroute to Yuma AZ and then over to Burbank CA where I was to disembark. I was not an official part of the flight crew on this flight but I always managed to stay bussy helping the crew, listening to radio transmissions and playing with the inertial nav equipment.

We were under condition Five, meaning we were all to be strapped in in spacific places until the skipper called condition two. I was seated on the floor,strapped to the bulkhead, facing backwards on the left side of the airplane. Next to me was the emergency over wing exit door that had a window in it, offering a great view of anything passing behind the wing, and with almost an unlimited visibility up forward and to the rear.

We had taken off to the North and executed a long 180 degree climbing turn to the South. We were climbing through about 6,500 th 8,500 for flight level-2300. (Turboprops do best around that level.) I was curiously looking out my window, and I could see San Jose airport about 10 to 15 miles to the east. Beneith us was Santa Clara I believe, with residential, and commericial type of development. Suddenly, and I do mean suddenly I spotted "what appeared to be" a metallic cylinder houvering just slightly below our altitude off to our left.

Now I say houvering for a reason. As someone who flew many hours in both left and right seats, I developed this uncanny ability, as do all pilots to judge distances, proportions speeds-energy states, even direction utilizing visual skills most people never develop. It's almost like a kinsthetic ability you develop when you fly a lot. Additionally I think I should add here that my eyesight then was better than 20:20 in both eyes, and my color comprehension was off the scale, and my depth perception was flawless.

With that, here Is what I preceived. Again the cylender appeared to have no motion, only a relitive motion to us. If it was moving, it was moving very slowly. I guessed its distance from us to be less than one mile and perhaps as close as a quartes mile. Either way, it was way, way too close for confort, especially since he was not in communication with Oakland flight watch nor was he transponding-obviously.

I estimated the size of the "craft" to be between 20 and 40 feet high and between 7 and 13 feet in diameter, a ratio of about 3 to 1, heighth to diameter. Again, it was slightly below us, and again depending on the actual distance I am guessing he was only 100 to 300 feet lower, but not more than that.

There was no one near me, and we were under condition five so there wasn't anything I could do to get another whitness. The object dissappeared behind and below the horizontal stablizer after about 15 seconds of observation by me.

Not only was this thing matellic, but it looked like chrome, like a merror. Infact I was surprized I spotted it as it blended so well into the suroundings. From below it would be very difficult to see.

I should add that Moffett Field was located right next to Lookheeds major instalation, with satelite tracking stations and all sorts of facilities. That compound is like a small city un to itself. May be this was one of thiers, or the Russians, who knows. All I know is that I saw it and for some strange reason I haven't told very many people.

There was one very strange thing that I should report in reference to this sighting, and it is strange.

The moment I saw this thing, and once I got a fix on it, ie its size,speed distance and all of that, I got the strongest feeling from deep inside myself that "I was not suposed to be seeing this." It was almost like a voice in my head had stated that to me.



NUFORC Note:

Date is approximate. PD


Posted 2004-01-22

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